Some of the 200 staff and volunteers from over 25 British East and Southeast Asian community groups PA training during the COVID-19 pandemic on responding to hate crime, 2021.
Dear friends,
We are thrilled to present Protection Approaches’ new Strategic Plan for 2021- 2023. Over the past seven years, PA has grown from a wild idea into a dynamic organization that is playing a critical role in redefining how the UK and the rest of the world understands and prevents identity-based violence.
From hate crime to online extremism, from structural discrimination to mass atrocities, identity based violence has become an all-too-common fact of daily life. Hate movements, armed groups, and governments are exploiting identity to divide us, manipulating our differences in the pursuit of power, a particular political agenda, or an exclusionary ideology.
As COVID-19’s economic and political consequences deepen, climate-driven crises become more common, and populist authoritarian movements threaten to upend long-standing democratic rule, there is a real risk that identity-based violence, including mass atrocities, will become more frequent, systematic, and entrenched.
We founded Protection Approaches in 2014 to meet these challenges head-on. We want to change the way the world thinks about identity-based violence – and by so doing, change how we respond to and prevent it. From our local programmes in communities and schools to our global efforts to confront mass atrocities and genocide, we are working to build a world where everyone accepts and respects each other, regardless of identity. We believe that this mission is not only possible but probable, and are dedicated to doing the long-term, difficult work necessary to help make it a reality.
Our new Strategic Plan is not just a blueprint for our own work, but a concrete set of guidelines for how, from the smallest neighbourhood to the global community, we can stand together against – and successfully push back on – hate in all its forms. As the Plan details, we will do this by pursuing three goals that continue and build on our past work: changing the way people define and prevent identity-based violence; challenging and dismantling structural prejudice, discrimination, and inequality; and achieving and sustaining operational excellence.
We hope you will join us. Together, we can turn the rising tide of identity-based violence and build a world free from prejudice, hate, and inequality.
Sincerely,
Dr Kate Ferguson Andy Fearn
Co-Founders and Co-Executive Directors of Protection Approaches